


we're gonna rattle this ghost town

by mogigraphia



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, Families of Choice, Fun and Games, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-03-24
Updated: 2013-05-05
Packaged: 2017-12-06 08:04:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,165
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/733404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mogigraphia/pseuds/mogigraphia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The one where the boys live in a world where powered human beings are becoming more and more socially accepted, and they've been invited to leave their homes and enroll in a school that will help them hone their powers, and hopefully become a team. Provided they can learn to work together, that is.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Theme Stated

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to all who encouraged me along and told me to just get on with it. This is the biggest undertaking I've attempted in quite a while, so any and all feedback is highly encouraged, and I am looking for someone to britpick future chapters, so if that someone could be you, please step forward! Any and all americanisms, characterization issues or spelling errors belong solely to me.

"I have superpowers?" Louis Tomlinson's mouth is a perfect 'o', his eyes cartoon character wide.

 

 

If Simon Cowell could look uncomfortable about anything, he would be right now. He shifts on the plush chair in the house in Doncaster, and the dark suited man next to him raises an eyebrow above his sunglasses slowly. Simon gives an almost invisible shake of his head. 

 

"You have a gift, yes." A pause, another shift. "Do you know why I'm here, Mr. Tomlinson?"

 

 

*

 

 

"Because I'm different, yeah?" Niall Horan shifts his gaze from his lap, and Simon can see a fierce pride that surprises him. His face is a little blotchy, the tips of his ears red, but he's steady when Simon's eyes meet his, slowly shrugging his mother's hand off his shoulder in the house in Mullingar. 

 

"Because I want to offer you an opportunity."

 

 

*

 

 

"Business opportunity? I mean considering who you are." Zayn Malik is, in a word, wary. His eyes watch Simon consideringly, listening like he's looking for double meanings. Simon tries on a kind smile, for all the good it does him. 

 

"Well, looking from a cynical perspective, yes." No sense in misplaced idealism, after all. Simon feels that on a level different from the other boys he's talked to, he and Zayn understand each other. And even after Zayn spares a look for his sisters, giggling at the far side of the kitchen in Bradford, his next expression toward Simon is no less calculating. 

 

 

*

 

 

"But I get a chance to learn too?" Liam Payne has the look of someone who shot up in the night like a fast action video of a tree's growth. Pinched but lengthy, and hungrier than his kind face would suggest. Liam's deep down need for knowledge and skill is hidden by his polite demeanor but it's so, so easy for Simon to see how badly he wants this, and how much it would mean to him.  

 

"Of course," says Simon smoothly. "The best facilities, the best mentors and teachers, and whatever else you require."

 

Liam takes a deep breath, steadying himself as he spaces a glance for the portrait of his grandfather over the mantel in Wolverhampton, and looks at Simon again.

 

 

*

 

 

"And you'll help me control it, yeah?" Harry Styles still looks like he might be sick all over again as he leans away from the toilet in Holmes Chapel. "I...I don't want to-" 

 

"Harry, I swear." Simon cuts him off, waving off the black suited man and stepping into the bathroom to crouch down beside Harry. "You'll never use your power again unless you choose to." 

 

Harry exhales shakily, tries to unclench his jaw, and gives an single decisive nod. 

 

 

*

 

 

Louis takes his bottom lip between his teeth, worrying at it for an uncomfortably long moment. Simon is unable to stop from leaning forward, just a little. 

 

"I just don't know, I mean, it'd be leaving home, pulling out of school..." Louis looks down and to the left, and arches his back with a shuddering movement. Simon is startled to come face to face with himself. His mirror image smirks. 

 

"Sorry, I just love doing that." LouisSimon leans back in the chair in Doncaster. "I get the pick the color of my tights, right?" 

 

 

 

***

 

 

_I can't stand this indecision_

_married with a lack of vision_

_everybody wants to rule the world_

 

 

They're in the room for ten minutes and Zayn is already sure that this is going to be an absolute disaster. There's four other boys and the one who seems to be wearing pyjama bottoms has sprung up on the glass coffee table and is clapping his hands over his head like a primary school teacher and Zayn just thinks 'definitely not'. 

 

"Alright, time to share with the class!" He calls out, somehow managing to look smarmy and impervious at the same time. The one in the baseball shirt looks up from his thorough examination of the glossy full color booklets they've all received detailing the program they're been summarily enrolled in and his eyebrows nearly touch his hair. 

 

"How do you mean, like, our names and ages?" 

 

Barefoot rolls his eyes. 

 

"Yeah, and your star sign and what you had for breakfast. I mean, we're obviously all here for the same reason. So show it off!" 

 

Baseball shirt looks a little uncomfortable with this, shifting on the couch. 

 

"I think Simon said to wait for time with our mentor to begin using our powers." Suddenly, a carbon copy of Baseball Shirt is standing on the table. 

 

"I think Simon said to wait for time with our mentor," he parrots exaggeratedly, and Blondie and Haystack Hair burst into laughter. Barefoot shifts back with a theatrical bow and the rest of the group claps dutifully, Baseball Shirt doing so with an uncertain smile, and Zayn thinks that at least the ice is broken. 

 

"Alright alright," Zayn says, putting his hands up, and the lights in the conference room begin to flicker rapidly.

 

"So you're like, Lord of the Light Switches?" Barefoot looks skeptical even through the overhead light panels light up in waves, and then in the Union Jack pattern, so Zayn shrugs as a multitude of ringtones go off simultaneously. 

 

"But you weren't even touching your phone, I could see your hands," Baseball Shirt says after they've all opened their identical text message that only bears a smiley emoticon. 

 

"I'm a technopath. Can manipulate that kind of stuff," Zayn says with a shrug, trying not to show how nervous he is about having gone first. After all, he'd come this far assuring himself that he wasn't going to care what his 'team' thought of him. 

 

"That's  _sick_ ," breathes Blondie, with a delighted expression of awe. "My iPod's been frozen since January, could you fix it?" Another burst of laughter erupts, and Blondie looks around with a defensive expression. "Thought it was a logical progression, I've got about five thousand songs stuck on there, after all." He sighs a little, and the smile is back. "I'm er, I can feel people's emotions," Blondie says after a minute, a corner of his mouth crooked up and his chest puffed out a little. 

 

"What, so you're 'sensitive'?" Barefoot snickers, which Zayn thinks is a bit rich coming from someone who got unreasonably excited about the texture of the carpeting against his feet earlier. Blondie shakes his head, undeterred. 

 

"No, more like." A look of concentration comes over his face, and he exhales and says, "We're all nervous." The look on his face now is something that Zayn can only describe as sniffing the air. "Yeah, nervous. I know nervous." 

 

"Well I could have told you that," says Baseball Shirt in a reasonable tone. "It's only natural, it's it?" Blondie turns the brain sniffing look on him.

 

"You're...irritated. Um. Sometimes I get words. When the emotion's strong. Feet. Glass. Smudge." Barefoot squelches his toes against against the glass top of the coffee table and grins, and Blondie laughs as Baseball Shirt gives a sheepish smile. 

 

"Sorry. I'm a creature of cleanliness, I guess," says Baseball Shirt, and Barefoot shrugs but makes no move to get down. 

 

"Your turn, clean freak," he prompts. 

 

"I don't think wanting feet off of a potential eating surface-" Baseball Shirt sighs and evidently decides it's not worth wasting more words, and gets to his feet. "Don't move." 

 

Barefoot doesn't have time to respond before he's being lifted into the air, table and all like he's less than a feather, and Baseball Shirt gives him an apologetic look as he shifts to balance it in one hand. 

 

"Oh. Right then," Barefoot says in a dazed voice as he's gently lowered back to the ground. 

 

"Now that is pretty fantastic," says Haystack Hair, who Zayn has nearly forgotten has sequestered himself in the corner. "How much weight can you actually take?" 

 

"I'm not sure, I haven't actually found something I've tapped out on before," Baseball shirt says with a shrug, scratching the back of his neck. "Used to move the chicken coop around for my Gran. Oh, and I blew out the back wall of my bedroom once. When I first got my powers." 

 

"How the hell did you manage that?" Haystack Hair asks, astounded. 

 

Baseball shirt colors, looking even more sheepish than before, his mouth barely moving. 

 

"Did you say 'masturbating'?" Barefoot asks, and when Baseball Shirt huffs an embarrassed laugh at himself and nods they all burst into laughter again and  alright, even Zayn has to laugh at that one. 

 

"Okay, everyone else has gone, last man standing," says Blondie to Haystack Hair, who goes from a dimpled grin to a terrified expression in seconds flat. 

 

"No, no, I don't want to," he says firmly, and the other lads shoot him curious looks. 

 

"Well, we're going to find out at one point or another. After all, that's what we're here for," Zayn says, trying for reasonable and some irritation bleeding out. After all, he volunteered to go first, why shouldn't his future 'teammate' at least share his hidden talent for growing gills or exploding milk or whatever the hell?

 

Haystack Hair shakes his head once more. "No. I never want to use my power again." 

 

This shocks all of them into stillness. A look at any of their faces shows that none of them can imagine _not_  using their powers. 

 

"But it's part of who you are," Blondie protests, the space between his eyebrows creasing. 

 

"We're supposed to be a team. How're we supposed to be a team if one of the team members doesn't use his powers?" Zayn snaps, and Barefoot of all people is putting his hands up. 

 

"Lets cool off. He doesn't have to if he doesn't want to." He must see something in Haystack Hair's face, because he's frowning at him like he's trying to figure something out, and they all subside. 

 

An awkward silence buzzes for a few seconds before the double doors leading into the hallway open, and all five of them sit up a little straighter. 

 

"I assume you've all had a chance to get to know each other," Simon says, and Zayn laughs. 

 

 

 

*

 

 

 

Liam thinks alright, maybe the dorm arrangement won't be too bad. Yes, he is more than a little jealous that Zayn managed to get a single, but he thinks that having a roommate will be good for him. 

 

"You wouldn't mind terribly much if I turned the air up? Dunno what it is, but anything over seventy degrees has me sweating buckets." 

 

Liam's new roommate, Louis (Louis Tomlinson from Doncaster, his brain supplies, because Liam nervously read and reread his Factor Academy acceptance letter containing the names of his future teammates over and over and once more for good measure) is nothing like he'd anticipated. He knows now that he was being more than  a little presumptuous, but Liam was rather hoping that his fellow teammates were coming into this with the same attitude that he was. 

 

"You wouldn't mind terribly that I speak in tongues when I sleep? Hah, kidding, but you definitely believed me for a second!" 

 

Or at least more seriously than this, Liam thinks with some uncertainty as Louis hangs up a poster of David and Victoria Beckham in their costumes and power poses above his headboard and stands back to admire it. 

 

"God they're fit, aren't they? Saw them defeat X-Tina before she crossed back to the good side when my family was in London on holiday a few years ago. That was before I got all magic mushroomed though, so I couldn't join in the fight." Louis does some karate chop motions complete with sound effects, and Liam blinks at him. 

 

"You weren't born with your power? It didn't like, run in your family?" 

 

"Not as far as I'm aware," Louis says with a shrug. "Aunt Tess liked to say she could read your fortune with the bumps on your head. She also said that Richard III was a stranded Martian, on account of his humpback." Louis hunches and swings his arms, and Liam wonders with a reluctant smile if his roommate is capable of explaining something without accompanying hand motions. "I got mine about a year ago. You've always been Clark Kent?" 

 

Liam shrugs uncomfortably, regretting asking to begin with. "It's always ran in my family, but not with any reliability. My Grandad was the last one to have it before me, and they didn't think I'd ever get mine." 

 

"Late bloomer?" Louis asks with a crooked smile, and Liam can't help but smile again. 

 

"More or less," he says with a laugh, and then nods toward their open door. "Guess we should go meet our mentor?" 

 

 

 

*

 

 

 

Of course, their mentor is nothing like Louis anticipates. Honestly, Louis _should_ have been anticipating it, it's a common cliche in the superhero genre and he accepted that his life had turned into an film when he sneezed at work and dropped a tray of drinks, then discovered that he had turned into the difficult customer from table five. 

 

"Alright dipshits, eyes on me." 

 

Louis is fairly certain that their mentor has more hair on her head than body mass. She cracks her gum with a cocked hip as she sizes each of them up, and Louis snorts as Harry exaggeratedly preens under her scrutiny. 

 

"How...old are you?" Zayn asks, and he's obviously hadly concealing his hesitance. It's really not an unfair question in Louis's estimation, as he's willing to bet she's barely over five feet tall. 

 

"Old enough, tall, broody and hipster. Now who wants to explain to me why only one of you is wearing the appropriate footwear?" 

 

All the boys look down the row of themselves, staring at each other's feet. As Louis might have guessed, only Liam is wearing proper trainers. He's pretty sure that he himself should be rewarded for wearing shoes at all, even if he's not wearing socks. 

 

A beat of silence passes, and their mentor rolls her eyes. 

 

"Guess you'll suffer for it. Now." Her hands go to her hips. "You can call me Cher, but put a toe over the line and it'll be 'Miss Lloyd' faster than you can blink."

 

Louis wants to protest that she honestly can't be that much older than they are, but he doesn't want to push his luck on the first day. He actually does want to be here, despite what he's fairly certain his roommate thinks. 

 

"Tomorrow we'll start with exercise regimes and blah blah blah," Cher makes the motion with her hand as she rolls her eyes. "But today, I have something a little different in mind." 

 

They follow her through the double doors into what Louis had assumed was an auxiliary gym when they were given their tour; after all there were purportedly around a hundred other powered individuals on campus. But they cross through the doorway and are face to face with what is unmistakably, an obstacle course. Niall thrusts his fists above his head and whoops. 

 

"Let the games begin!" He crows, grinning from ear to ear. 

 

"Wait, are their rules?" Liam asks, edging forward with the same excitement the rest of the boys are bouncing with, but obviously not wanting to get into trouble with Cher. 

 

"First across the finish line doesn't do laps for the rest of the week," she says with a nonchalant shrug. When she says nothing else, Louis grins because this is _so_  his idea of an exercise session. 

 

"Sounds like the rules are that there ain't no rules in the old west, Sheriff! Last one done is a rotten egg!" He cries out madly as he takes off for the first obstacle, the standard rows of tires to step through. What follows can only be described as a complete and total free-for-all. Everything immediately falls apart; they're obviously all too close together and there's elbows shoving into each other's chest and shoving with hands and Niall trips over the first tire with a long strand of creative cursing. 

 

"Every man for himself!" Harry laughs out, hopping over him and though his movements can only be described as newborn deer level of awkwardness, they get the job done and he's halfway across the grouping of tires before anyone else. Zayn huffs, and he and Louis scrap for a moment as their shoulders bump and their feet try to go for the same tire. 

 

"Shove off!" Louis grunts at him, and after a moment they're going again, though Niall has passed them by then as well. 

 

Louis finally clears the tires and runs up to the next obstacle, a pit filled with different shaped foam pieces and a line of ropes to swing them all across. He reaches the edge and grabs a rope, kicking off and he's swinging out over the edge and- 

 

His feet scramble on the edge of the other side for the barest moment but his Toms don't have enough traction, and he's swinging back and losing his grip just as Zayn swings himself to the other side with a grunt and continues on. Liam is just a few seconds behind him, wavering backwards for a second before getting his footing and disappearing as well.

 

Louis sighs, contemplating letting himself sink further into the depths of vaguely corn chip smelling, itchy hell, after all he's not going to get first at this rate, when a head pops over the edge. 

 

"Sheriff?" Louis says with some amount of surprise, because if anyone was going to pull ahead he would have bet on Clark Kent. 

 

Liam get his torso carefully over the edge and reaches a hand down toward him. "Here, I'll fish you out." Louis is incredulous. 

 

"You're getting so behind," he says, even as he half wiggles, half swims through the sea of misshapen foam blocks toward him. 

 

Liam shrugs the best he can hanging down into the pit. "Don't mind doing laps so much." Louis thinks that his roommate might be a bit of a lunatic because he's fairly certain that no one actually likes doing laps, but he's not going to look a gift horse in the mouth. He swings his hand up, fingers sliding out of Liam's grasp once, and with a grunt Louis tries again, and they manage to clasp hands. 

 

Grunting again, Louis starts to attempt to haul himself up, but before he can do much he feels the unnerving sensation of rising up out of the foam pit by his armand Louis is still not quite sure why this is making his head spin. 

 

"Right," Louis says faintly as Liam pulls him up like he's nothing, settling him on the edge and he's missing a shoe but Louis is not about to crawl back in for it. 

 

"Didn't want you to-" Liam starts, but Louis grins ear to ear, and gives him a quick shove backwards to send him tumbling into the foam, and maybe it's a bit of a dick move but every man for himself on the obstacle course. Plus, it had been worth it to see the look on Liam's face.

 

"In all great obstacle courses there are casualties!" Louis calls out by way of apology as he charges off toward the wall climbing obstacle. He will be damned if he's running laps if he doesn't have to. 

 

 

 

*

 

 

 

Niall is pretty sure his body is going to go to pieces on him. At least that's what it feels like is about to happen, considering his arms feel wrenched out of socket, his back feels like it needs to be realigned, and he doesn't even want to speak about his knee. 

 

"M'dying," he mumbled into his bedspread, and Harry laughs. Niall wiggles an arm out to flip him off, and he hears him just laugh harder. 

 

All things considered, Niall actually likes that he and Harry are roommates. They both enjoy a general state of clutter rather than complete cleanliness or horrific black hole slovenliness, and he helped Harry hang up a Manchester United banner above his bed and it's not Nottingham Forest, so there's that. 

 

"I think you'll manage, Cher wouldn't assign us exercise our bodies couldn't handle," Harry says with fond assurance. "She's our mentor, after all." 

 

"Yeah, mentor you'd like to bang," Niall says, eyes squinting with the light and the grin that's hidden as he peeps at Harry under one arm. 

 

"It's not like that, I just thinks she's cool," Harry protests in a slow stammer, before Niall hears him rummaging around in his kit that's sitting open next to him on his bed. 

 

Niall can feel sweaty flustered embarrassment seeping out of Harry, easy to pick out since it's so familiar to him and says, "You know, you should take her out, when we're properly graduated or whatever."

 

"Which knee did you say hurt the most?" 

 

Niall thinks that's probably the strangest question dodge he's ever heard, but he's not the type to press. He wiggles his bum knee with a groan, and he feels his bed dip with Harry's weight. 

 

"Deep Heat," Harry says by way of explanation, as he circles greasy hands around Niall's knee, smoothing the substance over his skin. 

 

"Brilliant," Niall breathes with another grin, moving full onto his stomach and tucking his other knee up a little higher to get it out of Harry's way. He can feel something he thinks is hesitance in the pads of Harry's fingers before his hands tighten a little and his thumbs dig in on either side of Niall's kneecap. Niall makes a little muttering pleased noise, his body relaxing into the touch and he can smell something else exuding from Harry he can't quite decode. Harry keeps on, working his hands around the joint, and Niall can feel himself going boneless. 

 

"Jesusfuck, you're good with your hands," Niall mutters with his accent thick and loose, rubbing his face against his arms like a cat. 

 

"So I've been told," Harry says, and his voice is husky like nothing Niall's ever heard before. It makes a pleasant shiver travel up his spine, hips stuttering into the bed as it moves up through him. 

 

Niall's opening his mouth to say something else, probably to tease him about using that line on all his roommates, when Niall's knee is abruptly cold, the bed jolting with the weight change. Lifting his head up, Niall peers blearily around with confusion. 

 

"Harry?" But it's pointless, Harry's already gone. 

 

 

 

*

 

 

 

"I don't think I can do this."

 

Harry knows he looks pretty ridiculous, panting and bent over slightly, since he booked it from the dorm floor to the floor with the conference room he'd met the rest of the lads from the first day, the floor he knew contained Simon's office. The one he'd just burst into. 

 

Simon, for his part, looks completely unflapped by his entrance. He pushes himself back from his desk, and surveys Harry over steepled fingers. 

 

"What is it that you can't do?" 

 

"This, all of this," Harry says, gesturing around himself, frustration making his head throb. "I thought I could handle it, but I really, really can't." 

 

"Still not terribly descriptive, Mr. Styles." 

 

Harry makes a frustrated noise, and throws himself into one of the cushy chairs in front of Simon's desk, rubbing his face hard enough to make his skin ruddy. 

 

"Can't, can't chance being around people and not being able to control it." Harry deflates, his shoulders falling as he shakes his hair around his face. He still can't decide which is worse, the knowing of his power, or being so utterly ignorant of it for so long. "You promised you were going to help me." God, Harry's really not proud of how close he is to tears right now, and he swallows hard. 

 

Simon's face softens, and this is why Harry's never been intimidated by the school benefactor like the other new students he's talked to are. 

 

"Harry, I haven't lied to you. I _am_  going to help you control it, but first, we have to understand it." Simon sighs, and Harry suddenly thinks that he looks awfully tired. "Powers aren't cut and dried, on or off, you have it or you don't. There's a whole spectrum of power possession, and while there's typically genetics involved in some fashion, it's not just down to switching off these genes or these genes on." Simon frowns deeply. "It's complicated. You told me in Holmes Chapel that you recognized the change? When your body switched it on?" 

  
Harry nods reluctantly. 

 

Simon looks thoughtful, and finally he smiles, leaning over his desk as he scribbles something on a sheet of fancy 'from the desk of...' paper, folds it over and slides it to Harry.

 

"Before the end of the week, I want you to go see a friend of mine. He lives off campus, a few blocks over. Take one of the other lads with you, make a day of it." 

 

Harry hopes he doesn't sound as petulant as he feels when he says, "But how is your friend going to help me?" 

 

Tentatively accepting the piece of folded over paper, Harry sighs, and Simon is back to all business. 

 

"You'd better hurry to the commissary Mr. Styles. It's burrito day and I'm told that they are quite a hot commodity," he says, so matter of fact that Harry can't help but smile. He gets up to leave and his hand is closing on the door handle when Simon stops him. "Harry, one more thing." 

 

Harry turns back, and he thinks that maybe Simon's expression is some mixture of serious and fond. 

 

"I didn't just throw you all together by chance. I picked the five of you for a reason. I need _all_  of you to work. Alright?" 

 

Giving a slow nod, Harry chews on that, and goes. 

 

 

***

 


	2. Catalyst

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "We are so lost," Liam groans, rubbing the heels of his hands over his eyes and hoping that when he takes them away again, he'll be standing in front of the nondescript skyscraper that is Factor Academy. Unfortunately, it's still a street of London he doesn't know when he opens his eyes. 
> 
> "Where's your sense of adventure?" Louis asks, grinning from ear to ear. "Playing hookey is about the journey, not the destination." 
> 
> "You need to stop appropriating cheesy aphorisms for nefarious purposes."

They've been training with Cher for about a month and while they might all physically be stronger (with the exception of Liam, who will probably never be stronger than he already is) and capable of running for longer and climbing ropes and so on and so forth, Zayn thinks they might just be the worst team he's ever been a part of. 

 

"Closer to the knob, it's gotta be second nature boys, you don't have time to gauge if there's a fire or a child or a death machine on the other side!" Cher says as she moves down the row of them, watching them all kick again and again at the tattered doors that are set up in the main gym. They're all just door frames anchored into the floor, with mechanisms that allow them to open when kicked the correct way, and then reset. They're not alone in the gym, there's other teams and solo individuals lifting weights or running laps or heading into the obstacle course. 

 

"Put your back into it!" calls out Nick, a mentor Harry's made friends with, laughing when Harry gives him a two fingered salute as he pushes his hair out of his eyes yet again, panting and sweaty. 

 

"Very well Liam, good form!" Cher calls out as Liam finally manages to kick his door open, and the rest of the group groans. 

 

"Easy for you to say, not all of us have the ability to carry around brick chicken coops!" Louis spits out venomously, using his shirt to wipe his face, his hair sticking up in sweaty clumps. 

 

"Get off his back he can't help it, plus these doors don't open unless you kick the exact right spot anyway," Zayn argued before surging forward and aiming another kick with no result. The irritation building in his brain was making his skin itch, and he was tired of listening to Louis complain. 

 

"Like that makes any difference when you've  _busted out a wall_  from getting  _your rocks off_ ," Louis cries out with more disdain and Liam colors and fumbles  a little reseting his door.

 

"Give it a rest, you're just annoyed you're the only one who hasn't managed to kick your door in yet," Zayn shoots back as Harry kicks his in and wheels around on both of them. 

 

" _Both_  of you shut it, my back hurts, and I'm tired and sore and gross from all of the stupid laps we had to run earlier because we couldn't stop talking, can we please just not speak for the next five minutes?!" 

 

"Agreed," Niall says, face blotchy and his hair plastered down to his forehead as he attempts to reset his own door. Aggravated silence ensues as they all get back to their doors, kicking and reseting and kicking again. Zayn looks over as he resets his own, watching Harry struggle for a minute before he crosses the space towards him, stopping him from having another go. 

 

"Hey, wait up mate, here," he says as he ushers Harry a little bit closer to the frame. Harry looks at him slightly askance, but allows himself to be lead. "Here, start from this spot, I think your legs will give you more leverage." 

 

Grunting, Harry reels back and kicks, making a cry of accomplishment and stumbling through the doorway as his momentum carries him, the door giving much more easily. He shoots a gratified look at Zayn, obviously thankful, and Zayn smiles back at him, big and genuine before he can stop himself. 

 

"Keep up the good work lads, I want you all to trigger the mechanism at least ten times each," Cher says, a quietly pleased smile on her face, and Zayn gets back to tackling his own door with a renewed sense of vigor. 

 

 

*

 

 

In retrospect, Liam thinks that he should have just listened to his gut, and stayed at the school.

 

"Wait wait, was it Hadley Road, or Hempstead Lane?" Louis asks himself musingly, staring up at a street sign. Liam has been avoiding thinking it, but it's starting to become an unavoidable fact.

 

"We are so lost," Liam groans, rubbing the heels of his hands over his eyes and hoping that when he takes them away again, he'll be standing in front of the nondescript skyscraper that is Factor Academy. Unfortunately, it's still a street of London he doesn't know when he opens his eyes. 

 

"Where's your sense of adventure?" Louis asks, grinning from ear to ear. "Playing hookey is about the journey, not the destination." 

 

"You need to stop appropriating cheesy aphorisms for nefarious purposes," Liam says, though Louis is giving him a look that makes him frown harder to keep a smile from surfacing. Louis has a terrible habit of making him crack up when he's trying to be serious. 

 

Niall swears softly as he rotates slowly on the spot near the traffic light, his phone held up like a beacon. "Bad news boys, I cannot get my GPS to work," he declares, his expression more serene than Liam really thinks the situation calls for. 

 

"More adventure for us then!" Louis says, rubbing his hands together and looking only slightly maniac. Liam knows the sensible thing to do would be to attempt to suss out the direction that they came, return to school and actually attend their classes for the afternoon, but. "Coming, Payne?" Louis asks, offering him a hand palm up, and Liam's hand is closing around it before he has a chance to second guess himself. 

 

They make their way down the street, hands swinging between them with Niall fiddling with his phone bringing up the rear. The street doesn't get any more familiar the further they go, and neither do the two streets they turn onto next. Liam thinks they just might be going in circles, but he decides to keep it to himself, repeating the phrases 'sense of adventure' and 'lighten up' in his mind as they trudge onward. 

 

"My feet are about to come off at the ankle," Niall says finally, frowning a little as he plops down onto a bench, groaning as he sticks out his legs in front of him and rotates his feet in his shoes. 

 

Leaning against an abandoned newspaper and periodical kiosk and peering around at the disturbingly empty street that looks more like an alleyway than anything else, Louis is somehow still grinning. 

 

"I feel, as team leader, that I must declare us officially lost." 

 

"And we were unofficially lost before?" Liam questions with a raised eyebrow, and Louis just shrugs. 

 

"It could be worse, we could be sat in Applied Physics, listening to Miss Cole go on about trajectory for the fiftieth time," he points out, and Niall makes a face at the mention. 

 

"And bless you for that, Christ knows I'd be sent out by now anyway, can never keep my eyelids open past her going on about potential energy versus kinetic, need to invest in toothpick. I mean-" Niall gestures with one hand and grimaces. "When I signed up for this superhero school shite, I thought it'd be all Hogwarts classes like Cape Wearing 101 and Your Sidekick and You, not like, goddamn real classes." 

 

Louis starts to laugh, and Liam smiles because his laughter is almost as infectious as Niall's, but then Louis makes a funny sound that's more weird-funny and not haha-funny. Liam looks over at him and he's up on his feet in an instant because there's a blade held by a hand emerging from the shelves of the newspaper stand. He doesn't get more than two steps toward him before the unmistakable shape of a gun barrel is pressed into the base of his spine. 

 

"Like they say, no funny business gents," says the holder of the gun, and Liam is already  _so_  done because this guy has said seven words and it's already obvious that he's in love with the sound of his own voice, and this is what happens when he decides to be mildly irresponsible? 

 

"I hate to disappoint a man with such lovely friends, but I am  _very_  funny," Louis croaks out, and Niall laughs like he just can't help it then Liam hears Louis make a choked off gurgle that has him contemplating the recovery time for a gun shot wound to the back and if he could still feasibly get the three of them out of there safely with one. 

 

"Don't slice him, M. said they have to be alive or it won't work," says Voice With a Gun testily, and Liam has about five seconds to wonder what the hell that's about before something he can only describe as a flash of lightning cracks the cement between Louis and Liam. 

 

"What the-"

 

Voice With a Gun curses and shoves Liam hard to the side, and Liam sees stars as he cracks his left temple on a street light, a grunted noise of pain shocked out of him as his hands scramble to hold himself up. Blinking red out of his lashes and hugging the light like it's his new best friend, Liam sees a small figure land in the crack, light and heat crackling around and radiating out like the corona of the sun. 

 

"Liam! Alright?" Niall's shouting in his ear but it's necessary because Liam's are ringing and the sound coming out is like a tornado. Liam nods, though he's not saying no to the steadying arm that loops around his waist.

 

Voice With a Gun is squeezing off a few shots at whoever has appeared to save their asses, but it doesn't appear to be doing anything. There's a whirling noise, almost like the sound of machinery, and bursts of light fling themselves out. Liam can't see the end result because one of his eyes is sticky with the lashes almost matted shut now, but he can't help but have a flood of satisfaction when he hears a cry of pain. His head gives a painful throb, probably because it's already trying to knit itself back together, and Liam hunches over against Niall and hopes that whoever is kicking ass and taking names is a force for good and not just someone competing their current antagonists. 

 

"Gonna die, or will you make it back to school, Payne?" 

 

Liam whips his head up, dizzy from the movement, as he widens his good eye. "Cher?" 

 

She grins as she rebraids her hair to one side. "The tone of reverence is touching. Where's the mouthy one?" 

 

Liam has a slit second of blank realization that the last thing he heard from Louis was a noise of pain, and then he sees a shot of Cher's alarmed face before the ground rears up and kicks him in the head, and everything goes black.

 

 

*

 

 

"I'm sorry," is the first thing that bursts out of Louis's mouth when he sees Liam's eyes blinking open, and Zayn gets a hand on his shoulder before he launches himself onto Liam's cot in the nurses station. "Really and truly, if I'd have known that we were going to get like, mugged or something-" 

 

Liam puts his fingers over Louis's mouth, the heel of his hand cupping his chin, and shushes loudly. 

 

"I will forgive you anything, I'll forgive you throwing a bus of nuns in the Thames, if you  _speak quietly_." 

 

Louis snickers behind Liam's hand, feeling pleasantly warm from the smile on Liam's face, and Zayn clears his throat.

 

"Glad to see you're like, healing or whatever. When Cher carried you back here-" 

 

"Hold on, Cher carried me?" 

 

"Yeah," Zayn says with a smirk, and Louis hopes he isn't turning pink because he'd rather not go full on cliche. "The two stooges saw your head, and almost spewed into the gutter, apparently." 

 

"I saw his skull," Niall says matter of factly as he enters to room, Harry trailing after him with a tray of food from the canteen. "I was not going near him." 

 

Louis sees Liam reach up and touch the gauze and bandaged patch on his forehead and wince a little, though the wound is already much smaller than it had been in the street. 

 

"Don't poke at it," Louis admonishes, grabbing at his wrist to keep him from doing it again. "What kind of Kryptonian are you, that a head wound lays you out?" 

 

"Hey, I've never actually gotten a really serious injury before, I mean, I broke my wrist once, but that's all," Liam protests. 

 

"Did you do that wanking as well?" Louis asks, and they both giggle like five year olds.

 

"Alright alright children, Miss Flack says that if Liam is going to continue healing, he has to eat," Harry declares, setting the tray down on the side table and taking Louis by the shoulder, squeezing mildly, and Louis leans back against him with a sigh from his seat on the edge of the bed. He relaxes as he watches Liam devour lunch, and allows himself to believe that Liam is actually going to be fine. It had all felt more touch and go than he's prepared to admit, and the panic he'd felt while trailing Cher down the street and watching Liam bleed down the back of her shirt was an experience that Louis didn't ever care to repeat. 

 

All five of them have about ten seconds of silence, before Nick and Cher burst in, arguing at the top of their lungs.

 

"Give his goddamn  _gaping head wound_  time to heal-" 

 

"And lose valuable time? Very funny story but  _I'm_  not laughing, I know it's just a big joke to you that Simon promoted me, but-"

 

"He's my charge, and I'm not going to have you-"

 

Louis clears his throat, his mouth in a tight little smile as he raises his eyebrows and they both peter out into momentary quiet. 

 

"Liam, here's the thing," Nick says, and he does look apologetic as he steps forward, "I'd love to just leave you alone about it, but our lovely Cher here," She gives him a shove to the shoulder, and he pokes her in the side with an eyeroll before continuing, "-mentioned that Louis was babblging some very interesting things on the way back to the Academy." 

 

Louis blinks as the eyes in the room swivel to peer and him, and he's not sure what kind of babbling he's going to be accused of. The thought makes his skin feel tight because he doesn't exactly remember what he said with Niall's hand clamped around one wrist and Liam's limp fingers in his other hand. 

 

"Louis said that they fought between themselves, the attackers," Nick starts, and Louis is pretty sure he visibly relaxes. "And that there was a third person mentioned. This is really important, can you remember the name of this person?" Liam sits up a little, looking thoughtful and then grabbing his forehead with a wince, and Cher gives Nick another scowl and a shove. 

 

"You're going to break him Grimshaw, I told you to wait until-" Liam puts a hand up, and when he smiles it's not even that pained, and Louis relaxes again. 

 

"No, it's fine. Er. Think it was just like, a letter. Like James Bond." Liam points as his eyebrows raise. "M. Just like James Bond, actually." Liam gives Nick a funny look. "We didn't get jumped by secret agents, did we?" Nick gives him a troubled smile. 

 

"That would be a much better story to tell at parties, but no, unfortunately not." 

 

"This isn't the first time this has happened, is it?" Harry asks slowly, and Louis looks up from Liam's face to see Harry looking at Nick intently. "This has happened to other students, hasn't it? That's why Cher found them so easily, she was keeping an eye on them."

 

"I'm not allowed to speak about it," Nick says, putting his hands up and backing away slowly when they all turn to look at him. "I'm not allowed, if I told I'd be fired, and I'd lose my nice suite with my fish tank and I'd just rather not try to find another job in this economy." He backs out of the door, and the rest of them are left to stare at each other instead. 

 

"So, there's...people, at least three," Niall says slowly, looking thoughtful as he purses his lips to one side, then the other, "That are trying to...kidnap students?" 

 

Louis is unnerved by the thought, and his hand comes up to the small cut on his throat that's starting to scab over, swallowing. 

 

"But, why?" Zayn says finally, agitated. It's a question none of them have a good answer for.

 

 

*

 

 

"You gotta lighten up Harry," Niall says with some teasing exasperation. They're supposed to be revising, but instead they've elected to hide in the reference section of the library and throw crumbled paper balls back and forth at each other. Harry's had tension rolling off of him in waves since James Bond attacked them, as he and Louis had been referring to it ("Not James Bond, Bond would never have behaved so stupidly!" says Liam Payne, irritated fanboy, every time) even though Liam had only a small pink scar by the time the canteen had opened for breakfast the next morning. 

 

"It's just, it's worrying," says Harry for the fiftieth time, lobbing another paper ball at Niall's head, and it bounces off his fringe and lands in the potted plant to his left. "They had to have followed you  from school, waiting for their chance when you were all alone..." 

 

"You sound like a crime show," Niall teases, flicking his paper so that it lands in the dipped open front of Harry's jumper, which is gaping open from where Harry's leaning over the table. But Harry's not having any of it, he fishes it out and chucks it back with more force than is probably necessary, and Niall can feel the hot burst of his irritated anger. 

 

"It's not funny!" He insists, raking a hand through his hair with a deep frown, fingertips smoothing over his fringe, and Niall can never decide if he cares too much about his hair or not at all. "The thought that someone is after us, what stops them from coming up in here at night when we're all asleep..." 

 

"First of all, Paul would break them in half, then into quarters," Niall says, half serious and half joking, because the school's head of security has a warm laugh and stupid jokes and a picture of his beautiful wife in his office, but he can also be seriously scary. 

 

"That's true," admits Harry, and Niall doesn't so much sense relief as resignation eeking out of him. They're both quiet for a long moment, and Niall sighs after he flicks the snap of his pen back and forth for a moment, then stands up. 

 

"Lighten up, lighten up, lighten up, lighten up, lighten up," he chants as he marches over to Harry's table, taking ends of Harry's hair and stretching them to and fro to the beat of his words. Harry's laughing as he bats at Niall's hands, ridiculous little giggles that make Niall a little bolder, bumping his stomach against the back of Harry's head and reaching to tickle his collarbones. 

 

It's perfect for perhaps all of a minute; Harry's leaning back into him and reaching to poke his fingers into Niall's armpit, his long fingers wiggling against Niall's bare skin because he's in a tank top, and it makes him breathless in a way that's separate from being tickled. The strange tastesmell from before is back, the sweet syrupy taste of it mixing with the bright joy that's haloing out from both of them. 

 

One moment Harry is giving him that dimpled smile, grinning so hard his eyes are almost closed, and then Niall is stumbling backward from the force of Harry's shove, knocking into an ancient globe on a stand and nearly sending it onto it's side. 

 

"Sorry," Harry says shortly, staring down at his book and radiating things that are too tangled and complex for Niall to understand. There was embarrassment, and a few words stuck to the back of his mind, but nothing Niall thought was particularly helpful, just 'touch' and 'face'. 

 

"S'fine," Niall says with a shrug, swallowing back the fact that Harry's done something similar two times this week already, and he's not an idiot, he knows this is something to do with Harry's still undiscussed power because what else could it be? He's not going to push because that's not who he is, he just wishes that Harry could trust him with this. 

 

Forcing a smile, Niall goes back to his table, taking up his customary spot sitting cross legged on top of it and lobbing another paper ball at Harry, who doesn't look up.

 

"Don't make me throw anymore Styles, I've only got three sheets left and I have a feeling I'll need all three for Genetics." The class name is said with a scowl, and Niall is pleased to see Harry finally look up with a reluctant smile. 

 

"Niall I told you, Punnett squares aren't really that difficult," he says, grabbing up a different binder and flicking through his notes quickly, and well, Niall thinks, at least there's that. 

 

 

*

 

 

With all of the excitement and anxiety of the week, plus their surprisingly demanding courseload, Harry had forgotten all about the friend of Simon that he was supposed to go visit...three weeks ago, oops. When he finds the address sandwiched between his PR textbook and his Magic as Applied Sciences paper, Harry stares at it blankly for a moment before it's purpose comes to him. 

 

He knew Simon had told him to take one of the lads with him, and after the disaster that was Louis, Niall and Liam attempting to play hookey he knew that he honestly should have taken someone along. It was something he fretted over, folding and unfolding and then refolding the sheet of paper. Be honest about his power with the boys because he knew that he'd really have to explain what was going on, or try to navigate the streets of London alone with the rest of more faceless James Bond flunkies stabbing and/or shooting him?

 

Harry wished he'd been able to pry more out of Nick about the whole thing, he'd buttered him up with a rare Steve Wonder vinyl and what may or may not have been a real skull he'd found in a antique shop for his aquarium, but he'd been surprisingly immobile about the whole affair. 

 

"I can't tell you a think, I really can't Harry," he's said from the curve of his sectional, a few days after Liam had completely healed up. "Come and sit down, you make me feel like a neglectful parent when you feed the fish." 

 

Harry rolled the cannister of fish flakes between his palms thoughtfully. 

 

"Nick, please," he asked, bouncing on his feet and frowning. "You have to be able to like, give me some kind of hint about what's going on. For peace of mind, even!" 

 

"Harry, believe me, I wish I could be Cowell would slaughter me, now come away from the tank, leave it for Fincham!" 

 

It makes him nervous to go alone but in the end, the prospect of telling one of the boys the reason behind the trip makes him want to puke, so harry found himself using Simon's note to get past paul and out onto the streets of London. Thankfully he wasn't as hopeless as Niall was at navigation, because it only took forty minutes and one wrong turning before he was pressing the buzzer for a flat on the second floor of a grungy walk up that still seemed to be a fairly nice building. 

 

"Help ya?" Comes the static-y voice, and Harry clears his throat of nervousness, realizing that through all of his internal angst over the whole trip he hadn't given a single thought to what he might say. 

 

"Er, I'm Harry Styles, Simon Cowell sent me?" Harry says uncertainty giving him more pause than normal. 

 

Thankfully, that seems to be all he has to say because the disembodied voice just cheerfully replies, "Brilliant, on up with you," and buzzes him in. The static proves to be misleading, because Harry had been counting on someone fairly elderly, or at least someone of an age Simon might consider a friend. but when the door of the flat opened to Harry's knocking, a pale and gingery scruffed face pokes out that Harry can't imagine belongs to anyone over twenty-five. 

 

"Mm, I can see why you're all tied up in knots," he says as he steps back to let Harry inside. "You've been saddled with something that unbalances the most levelheaded people. Watch the cat," he adds, and Harry narrowly avoids tripping over a dark tabby that's trying to wind it's way around his legs. "Come and sit down so she can sit on your lap, she falls in love with everyone." 

 

Plopping down and almost disappearing into the couch cushions, the tabby insinuates herself onto Harry's knees and puts her paws on Harry's chest as she butts her head against his chin. Harry strokes his hands down her back for a moment, then looks up and says, "Simon said that you could like, give me peace of mind...?" 

 

"Yeah, well, you at least, from the looks of it," says the ginger agreeably, then gives his head a little shake. "Sorry, I'm being a tit, I'm Ed, that's Fred," Ed points at the cat. "And I can sense powers." There must be panic in his expression, because Ed raises his eyebrows and he puts his hands up. "Don't. Freak." 

 

A muscles under the right corner of Harry's mouth twitches as he says, "I'm...not." A beat of silence passes, and Harry puts his head in his hands. "How are you supposed to help me? I. I want..."

 

"To learn how to control it?" Ed asks gently, and Harry nods from the confines of his hands. 

 

"I don't want to hurt anyone." Harry's glad his face is turned away so he doesn't have to look at Ed. "I'm scared that I've made someone. Do something they don't want to do. Like. Made girls do things." Harry really, really glad he's not looking at Ed.

 

Ed is quiet for a moment before speaking again; Harry peers at him through his fingers and Ed is making a face kind of like Niall does when he's feeling out the emotions that are drifting through the air. "Your power is something I call the power of suggestion, and it can be very complex, and very tricky. It's like..." Ed drums his fingers against his thigh as he considers his next words. "It's like a pheremone, yeah? You turn it on, and people are receptive to it or they aren't, not everyone is." Harry breathes a small short breath of relief at that. "Now, people that are receptive to it, not everyone will be to the same degree. Some people will only feel a little like, tingle of it. And far and fewer between are people that are extremely responsive to it." 

 

"And it makes people do whatever I want them to?" Harry still feels guilty about this, he doesn't think that he'll ever stop feeling guilty when he thinks of all the people he might have taken advantage of, girls he's dated and people who've been kind to him or done things for him that he'd always assumed were because they were friends or because they liked him until Simon showed up on his doorstep in Holmes Chapel. 

 

"Not exactly," says Ed with a thoughtful expression. "What you have, it's not like mind control, like you're talking about. It makes people, hmmm, let's say that it makes people more receptive to what you're asking of them in general, like gives you a bump in your favor, but you're not powerful enough to have a person do anything they wouldn't already want to, like kill someone, or have them sleep with you." 

 

"Thank-" Harry cuts himself off, rubbing his hands over his face again, and his hands are shaking a little with relief.

 

"Jesus, you've been giving yourself an ulcer, why didn't you just ask?" Ed says, looking incredulous as Fred the cat nudges at Harry's hand with her nose impatiently, and Harry slides it down her back, still shaking. 

 

"Was afraid of the answer," Harry admits, and Ed shakes his head,  huffing a breath of a laugh with a raise of his eyebrows. They're quiet for a long moment, Harry petting Fred and Ed kindly ignoring the wetness Harry's doing his best to blink out of his eyes. To break the awkward silence, Harry says, "So like, she's named after Fred Astaire, right? Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers? Since you've got-" Harry grabs a handful of his own curls, with a hopeful grin and raised eyebrows. Ed just gives him a blank look, a quizzical expression on his face.

 

"Wait, who?" Ed asked bemusedly. "I named her after Fred from Angel."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feel free to leave a comment, and the cat in question is a real cat, but she's called Catniss in real life, even if I am happy to report she is just as demanding of cuddles. Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed!


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